Desperation Born From A Reminder
by Percyjacksonfan3
Summary: Dig. It was some sort of therapy for Sandor and yet he couldn't drown out the thoughts today's revelations struck in him. Sansa was married to the Imp, Joffrey was dead and Sandor was recovering on an isle for monks. He was lame in one leg. What was he supposed to do now? Hints of Sansan and some pretty foul language because it's Sandor Clegane! Please read!


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This all belongs to George R.R. Martin folks! I just hope you enjoy it.**

_Dig_.

The wood was rough between his fingers, rough and yet smooth at the same time. It was a contrast Sandor liked and right now the roughness was creating a pain that he took a particular sick pleasure in.

The shovel pierced the ground and Sandor threw all of his willpower into picking up that one load of soil, flinging it backwards and repeating the process all over again. It was repetitive and constant and right now that was just what Sandor needed. No more surprises, no more reminders of what he had left behind.

Of what he had lost.

No, he shook his head. Don't think about that. Not yet, not now. Just dig.

You could say that it was his own form of therapy now that the option of drink had been taken from him. Without a drink to cloud his mind and fog his brain Sandor was left with his own thoughts and memories. Things he didn't want anymore. Or at least didn't want right now. Right now he was at the end of his limit, about to be pushed off the edge.

He just kept digging and eventually everything else faded away except the pounding of his heart, the rain pounding down around him, the pain from the rough wood and the complete helplessness he felt.

Suddenly Sandor Clegane couldn't remember why he had ever left King's Landing. Or more exactly- why he had left her.

Dig.

oooOOOooo

Dig.

The robes were starting to get annoying, that was for sure. And the digging. Sandor was sick of digging. He was a warrior, not a gravedigger, and yet the Elder Brother was firm in his conviction that Sandor may not do anything but the task he had been assigned to for weeks now. It would help him think, the priest insisted, help him find faith.

Sandor had snorted and asked him if he found his faith by digging rows of dirt. So far it had done nothing for Sandor.

But the Elder Brother was firm and had more men on his side than Sandor did. Plus Sandor needed the food and the bed. If all he had to do was dig a few graves for that he would do it. Better than going out and murdering scared little green boys who could barely hold a wooden sword nevermind a steel one.

That thought reminded Sandor of that butcher boy. The one he had ridden down. Which then reminded him of the little she wolf. Arya Stark, little bitch, had left Sandor to die at the bottom of a tree. He could barely remember anything after the fight with Gregor's men at that inn, but he did remember that he begged the bitch to kill him.

He had begged her. Fucking begged. And the little she wolf had barely blinked an eye.

She had wanted to kill him for weeks and yet when he was finally incapable of stopping her she didn't. Why was that? Why was it people only tried to kill him when he wanted to live for a bit longer? Why couldn't they want to kill him when he asked them to?

Sandor shook his head. No point thinking of the girl now, she was probably hanging dead from a tree or a captive of some other son of a bitch who was smart enough to realize her worth. Then again who would the bastard ransom her to. From what Sandor remembered there was nobody else who would want her except the Lannisters?

Another snort. Then again, even though Sandor was doing his best to stay out of the way of the lions, that wasn't to say anybody else would. Just because Sandor had tried to be kind- for both the little wolf bitch and the little bird- it didn't mean that anybody else would.

The thought of Arya Stark being dead or a captive of the Lannisters was almost enough for Sandor to forgive the bitch. Almost.

But he had begged. He had fucking cried. And all the bitch had done was stand there and tell him he should have saved her mother.

What was it about those mother fucking Stark girls?

He shook his head. Best not think of them. Best to just get on with his work, forget about his past life.

Of course anything was better than this constant digging.

Dig.

oooOOOooo

Dig.

Sandor had not yet given his vows the day the Elder Brother came to find him. The air was cold, the sky overhead hinted at rain to come, but Sandor kept at it. His leg was better now, well enough to stand on, and that was really all he needed to be able to dig graves. Besides the cold air helped clear his head and provide momentary clarity in thoughts.

The wood scratched at his hands and Sandor let out a half growl. How many fucking graves would he have to dig anyway? One for each man he had killed? He almost laughed. That would take months and there was next to no chance Sandor would stay here long enough for that.

Maybe he would leave the Quiet Isle. He could never be a pious man and there was no way in hell he could live without drinking forever. There was nothing keeping him here and nothing stopping him from leaving. So he should.

He saw the work the faith did here and despite everything Sandor admired them for it. Unlike so many other 'faithful' men these saps were actually keeping to their vows. No drinking, no women, no killing. They drank up their faith, they showed their love to their gods, the turned their lust for battle into lust for peace and belief. Sandor didn't want to mess them up. They had a good thing here- it just wasn't good for him.

Sandor shook his head. The belief of faith could change a man so much he was hardly a man anymore. Thankfully if there were gods, they hadn't made themselves known to him as of yet.

He pierced the earth with his blade again and lifted the soil, flinging it over his shoulder. His robe was flapping around him and the hood was  
keeping in his heat and starting to make Sandor sweat but he kept at it. If things went right this would be his last day of doing this gods forsaken job.

He threw another load of soil behind him, unsure of where it would land, and was about to stab the spade into the earth again when he heard the Elder Brother's voice.

"Careful there, you could hit somebody. Be thoughtful of your surroundings, Sandor."

Sandor started and turned to find the Brother standing there with his hands behind his back, waiting patiently.

He hadn't even heard the man's footsteps.

He sighed. "Look, I'm digging your bloody graves. If somebody's stupid enough to walk near me when I'm doing that then it's their own fools of a fault."

The Brother just studied him, taking in his face, before nodding. "You are not yet ready."

Sandor's eyes narrowed and he felt his face twist into the all too familiar snarl. "Ready for what?"

Something flickered in the man's eyes but it wasn't fear, like Sandor was expecting. Elder Brother shook his head. "Nothing of concern at the moment. Please, Clegane, come with me."

Sandor looked down at the spade still clutched in his hand to the Elder Brother's retreating back. With a curse he stabbed the spade down so it stuck up in the dirt and limped as fast as he could after the religious man.

Dig.

oooOOOooo

Dig.

He shouldn't have followed the Elder Brother, Sandor knew that now. He should have chosen to stay out here, digging for all his life's worth. It  
would have been better that way, easier.

He gave out a barking laugh. When had his life ever been fucking easy? Sandor couldn't remember a day.

He stabbed the ground again, yanked out the soil, and threw it over his shoulder without a care in the world who the fuck it hit. Right now he didn't really give a damn about anything.

What was there for him to care about? He had no one left to serve, no one else to save. No purpose. His whole life Sandor had followed somebody, had been ordered. Now what was there for him to do? Should he go out and try to live a semi-normal life? Everybody would recognize him, it wasn't exactly easy to blend in with his face.

Sandor hadn't been the Hound in a while but he felt it coming back to him. That feral hatred, the way he could act almost non-human. The love for taking a man's life, the lust for wine. It was creeping back up on him and for the first time since leaving King's Landing Sandor wondered if he wanted it to.

Bugger if he wanted it to or not, Sandor could feel his poor excuse for will power start to crumble. And it was all the Elder Brother's fucking  
fault.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was his fault for following the poor excuse of a man. For listening to what he had to say. For blocking out what he had heard before. It was his fault for intentionally forgetting in the first place. He knew what trauma did to men, knew that sometimes they shut out certain things. Intentional memory loss, some people called it, but Sandor preferred to call it weak. If you can't face the truth in life then how the hell did a man expect to live?

But now he was no better than the buggers he had mocked for years.

He let out a growl and raised the spade again.

Dig.

oooOOOooo

Dig.

Don't remember, don't go back to that.

But it was too late. Sandor was already lost in his memories.

The Elder Brother had taken him to the same area he had later taken the visiting ugly wench, Brienne of Tarth. He sat heavily across from the Elder Brother not saying a word. He slowly extended his leg and let out an almost non-existent groan at the relief the action held. The Elder Brother watched as he did so and when he raised his eyes Sandor was already watching him.

"Sandor you've been here for almost a month now and you're leg has made tremendous improvements. It's healing much faster than I expected. In fact I think it's well enough for you to go back out into the world."

Sandor was surprised at the abrupt way the Elder Brother spoke and he frowned. "Well I was thinking maybe I would be leaving soon..."

Elder Brother nodded. "And where would you go?"

Sandor frowned. "To be honest I haven't really thought about it. I could travel around, become a sellsword maybe."

Elder Brother raised an eyebrow. "You don't know where you would go?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "I was just focusing on getting out of here."

A frown. "Well Arya Stark's whereabouts are unheard of, so you couldn't go back to trying to ransom her. Joffrey's dead, your brother-"

Sandor choked on the breath he was taking. "Joffrey's dead?"

Elder Brother paused, frowning again. "Yes, but you already knew that."

Now it was Sandor's turn to be confused. "I didn't know the little shit was dead."

The Elder Brother leaned forward. "Sandor," he said seriously. "You're the one who told me in the first place before I heard from anyone else. While you were feverish, laying under that tree with your infected wound you kept talking about how Tyrion Lannister killed his nephew Joffrey along with his wife Sansa Stark. You talked about her burning him with wildfire and a bird flying away." He paused, watching as Sandor's eyes widened and his body froze. "Do you really remember none of this?"

Sandor just sat there. "Sansa married the fucking Imp?"

Elder Brother leaned backwards, studying him with pursed lips. "You really don't remember," he mused, as if to himself. "Not unheard of, fever blocks out memories too painful for the person to bear... but why those memories would be painful to you..."

He had to get out of there.

Without another thought he got up, faster than he would have ever thought possible with his bad leg, and gritted his teeth from the pain. Somehow he heard the Elder Brother calling after him but his mind was too clouded with pain to make sense of his words.

Sandor didn't know where he was going until he came to stand by the spade he had stuck in the dirt. He glanced at it for a second before yanking it from the soil and grabbing hold.

Then he started to dig.

He wasn't sure how long he had been going at it before the rain started- he only noticed the rain after it had been going for a while. Still, he barely paid it heed, the only thing he could make sense of were his thoughts and even then he hardly understood everything.

Joffrey was dead.

Dig.

Killed by that mother fucking, son of a bitch, Imp.

Dig.

Sansa.

Dig.

Sansa had married the Imp.

Dig.

She had probably fucked him too.

Dig.

Little Bird had flown away from her cage once and for all.

Dig.

Nobody knew where she was.

Dig.

She could be alive. Out somewhere alone, with nobody else. Or somebody else. Who gave a flying fuck, right?

Dig.

Or she could be dead.

Di- snap!

Sandor was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of wood breaking. The spade's wooden handle had split in two, Sandor held one end with the spade still attached to the wood and one end of just wood. He hadn't noticed the force he was using when he dug the rocky soil and for the first time Sandor noticed the faint trace of blood coming from his right hand. A small scratch, nothing more, and yet the sight of it made Sandor want to punch something.

The rain pattered down around him and all Sandor could think was that Sansa probably liked rain. She probably thought rain was romantic. A kiss in the rain with some white knight probably came from one of those fairy tales she had loved so much. Did she still like fairy tales? How long had it been since he had last seen her? Had she kept his cloak?

Did she ever think of him sometimes?

Gods, how bloody pathetic was he? And yet he couldn't stop the wave after wave of emotion that suddenly filled him, couldn't stop himself from thinking about her. And every time one of the brothers sang that bloody hymn Sandor left the gods forsaken room because he needed to piss.

Or at least that's what he told everybody. They didn't notice that it was always that same song, didn't care enough to see the signs. The Mother's Hymn was something Sandor avoided at all costs in this place. He had only heard the first few words since King's Landing and he had forgotten what they sounded like because none of the brother's voices could ever hold a candle to the Little Bird's song. It was ingrained into his memory.

So Sandor stood there, staring at the pieces of the spade he had just broken, and suddenly he could only think of one thing to do.

He marched up to the Elder Brother- who he found standing just outside his cottage, probably spying on him- and didn't wait for him to say anything. He just dropped the broken spade at the brother's feet and spoke one word, holding out his hand.

"Shovel," he demanded.

Without saying anything the Elder Brother turned and walked off, quickly returning to find Sandor standing in the same spot with his hands at his sides. Wordlessly the man held out the new shovel and Sandor grabbed it, stalking off to return to where he had previously been digging. Rows upon rows of graves and yet Sandor knew there were bodies to fill them all.

So he moved to beside the newest dug grave and started another, trying to drown out his thoughts with this strange sort of therapy he had developed.

Dig.

oooOOOooo

**So this just came to me on a whim and I know it most likely didn't happen and I realize that I've now fallen into the category of being a hopeless faithful of the Sandor Clegane Gravedigger theory. Oh well. If there's a chance that he's alive and I can get some Sansan closure (because let's be honest, the way they left things is just a cliffhanger for more encounters to come). **

**I can't wait for The Winds of Winters because I think instead of throwing in some more new mysteries George will finally reveal some things he's been hiding. (Hopefully!) closure on the way!**

**Keep following, there are more fics to come, slowly but surely, please review! They make me a better writer and encourage me more than anything else!**

**Love you all!**

**Percyjacksonfan3**


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